Latitude

Launch companies › Latitude

Welcome to our in-depth analysis of Latitude, originally published February 12th, 2023 and most recently updated October 6th, 2026 Updated content. Make sure to check out our mission statement and why we do what we do. Look at our New Space guide if you want explanations of terms and concepts used in our research. See Latitude’s rocket next to Europe’s others in European rockets compared, and every first-launch date the company has given in European launch dates. And follow us on X for updates.

🚀 Update from October 2026

• Flight. As of October 2026, Latitude has not reached orbit. Company homepage: First launch 2027. After SaxaVord and Kourou plans, a letter of intent with Etlaq (Oman) on 1 July 2026 frames an experimental inaugural in late 2027. We’d treat that date as optimistic until hardware is on a licensed pad.
• Money. Series B EUR 27 million (USD 30 million, January 2024); company total about EUR 50 million. Not preselected for ESA’s European Launcher Challenge (7 July 2025).
• Company. Président Stanislas Maximin; CEO Philippe Trillat (from 4 August 2026). Register capital EUR 10,032.80. INSEE 2024 band 100–199; company site 160.
• Specs / sites. Former Zephyr name dropped; company specs about 200 kg LEO / 300 kg SSO, ~30 m; Navier layout 7 + 1 in 2023–25 materials. Kourou ELM-Diamant: a CNES pre-contract only, with site works paused in mid-2026. The company calls the Oman LoI a complement and has not disclosed a funded pad build there.

Companion: 2026 Update on Latitude.

What you should know about Latitude

📰 For space enthusiasts

• As of October 2026, Latitude has not reached orbit. The company homepage says First launch 2027. After a SaxaVord MoU (2022) and a 2025 commitment to Kourou’s Diamant pad, Latitude and Oman’s Etlaq Spaceport signed a letter of intent on 1 July 2026 for a framework toward an experimental inaugural flight in late 2027. A Latitude spokesperson told European Spaceflight the LoI is a cooperation framework, that detailed agreements (including export-control compliance) are still to follow, and that Oman is a complement to the Guiana Space Centre. No funded pad build in Oman has been disclosed. Letters of intent are typically non-binding; we treat late 2027 as optimistic (see overview). Kourou remains in the plan, but Latitude holds only a CNES pre-contract there, and its site works were paused in mid-2026.
• The vehicle formerly marketed as Zephyr is now just “our launcher” on the company site (name dropped in early 2026). Two-stage LOX / RP-1 with in-house Navier engines. Materials from late 2023 onward describe seven sea-level Naviers on stage 1 and one vacuum Navier on stage 2 (the 2023 review still said nine-plus-one). Company page today: about 200 kg to LEO and up to 300 kg to SSO, length about 30 m (December 2023 materials still said ~19 m / 100 kg for the then-current design).
• Reusability is not how Latitude plans to cut cost. Latitude’s published path is high-rate production, not catching boosters.

💰 For VCs and industry experts

• Series B of EUR 27 million (USD 30 million) closed January 2024 (Crédit Mutuel Innovation, Expansion, Bpifrance Deep Tech 2030 / France 2030, UI Investissement, Blast.club, Kima Ventures and others). Company total raised about EUR 50 million.
• Latitude was not preselected for ESA’s European Launcher Challenge on 7 July 2025 (ESA shortlist: Isar, MaiaSpace, Orbex, PLD Space, Rocket Factory Augsburg). Maximin told Payload the company did not need ELC financially. That still leaves Latitude outside the nine-figure ESA contracts peers later signed: Isar reached orbit on 5 September 2026; PLD and RFA hold ELC awards in the EUR 150–190 million class. Among living European microlauncher hopefuls still promising a first orbit without an ELC cheque, Latitude sits near the back of the pack with HyImpulse (which at least flew a sounding rocket in 2024).
• France 2030 awarded Latitude EUR 15 million in June 2024 for two development projects, according to European Spaceflight.
• France 2030 Première Usine support for a new Reims plant was announced April 2025. Filed state-aid notices list about EUR 2.67 million in grant and EUR 0.89 million recoverable advance under matching RDI/PME regimes, on top of earlier RDI grants (about EUR 0.5–1.3 million each in 2022–23). A secondary press line of “~20% of a EUR 50 million factory” is not an official headline figure, so we do not treat it as filed.
• CNES selected Latitude as one of four laureates of the France 2030 micro/mini-lancement demonstration call (26 March 2024). The euro value of that contract is not public in the CNES release.
• At Kourou’s ELM-Diamant site, CNES pays about EUR 50 million for shared infrastructure; Latitude says it will spend about EUR 8 million on its own pad and buildings. These are separate budgets. Latitude holds only a feasibility-stage pre-contract with CNES (CNES names PLD Space as the only tenant with a development contract), and in July 2026 a Latitude spokesperson said its Kourou construction works were “expected to resume shortly”.
• We are not publishing a single Series B valuation. Share filings show nominal capital only (€0.10 par). Our older Series A estimate (~EUR 25 million post, June 2022) stands as a dated estimate.

👨‍💻 For potential employees

• Official INSEE band: 100 to 199 employees for 2024. Company website: 160 team members (October 2026). Press said ~140 in April 2025. LinkedIn’s “232” associated-members count uses a different definition, so we do not blend the numbers.
• Base: Reims. Test: Titan at Vatry / XCR. A larger factory (up to ~25,000 m²) targets move-in in H2 2026 and 160 additional jobs by 2030 (company claim).
• Leadership as of October 2026: Stanislas Maximin remains Président on the register and Executive Chairman in company language; Philippe Trillat is CEO (from 4 August 2026, per company LinkedIn and site). Aurélie Bressollette held the CEO seat from November 2024 until that handover; her exact exit date is not public beyond the Trillat start. Co-founder Ilan Saidi-Bekerman is no longer directeur général (BODACC May 2026).

Latitude: France’s Reims microlauncher, still on the ground, launch site still changing

Latitude is a French NewSpace company founded in 2019. It started as Prometheus Space Industries, became Venture Orbital Systems, and rebranded to Latitude in 2022–23. The product is a two-stage LOX/RP-1 launcher powered by the in-house Navier engine. For years the company sold it as Zephyr, a name it has since removed from its website.

As of October 2026 the rocket has not flown. Maximin and Saidi-Bekerman were born in 1999 and raised French capital when German peers were already talking hundreds of millions. The open questions now are launch site and schedule. SaxaVord was the first plan, then Kourou’s Diamant pad, then, in July 2026, a letter of intent to open with an experimental flight from Etlaq in Oman in late 2027, with Kourou still named as a complement. Latitude has raised money (Series B, France 2030 factory support, CNES demonstration laureate status), but less than the European Launcher Challenge contracts that went to the shortlisted companies, which Latitude did not join.

Where Latitude sits among European launchers. ESA’s July 2025 European Launcher Challenge shortlist named five challengers (Isar, MaiaSpace, Orbex, PLD Space, Rocket Factory Augsburg) and not Latitude. By October 2026 that split shows up in metal and money: Isar’s Spectrum reached orbit on 5 September 2026; PLD and RFA signed nine-figure ELC contracts; HyImpulse (also outside ELC) at least flew a suborbital SR75 in 2024. Latitude’s announced equity stack is still about EUR 50 million. That is a serious French industrial raise, but well below the ELC contracts of the shortlisted companies.

Etlaq / Oman: what is actually there. Etlaq’s Genesis programme has hosted suborbital / experimental campaigns from Duqm (Duqm-1 from December 2024 onward; further attempts through 2025). The permanent orbital complex is still build-out, with commercial orbital operations talked for the end of 2027, the same window as Latitude’s LoI. PLD Space (strategic agreement, 2025) and HyImpulse (LoI, June 2026) have also lined up Etlaq. Oman is a shared European plan, not Latitude’s alone.

Our view on late 2027: we’d treat late 2027 as optimistic because (1) the 1 July 2026 instrument is a letter of intent / framework, not a published binding pad licence or construction contract; (2) Latitude itself says detailed agreements and export-control steps are still ahead, and has not disclosed how the Oman ground segment is funded; (3) Etlaq’s own orbital infrastructure is scheduled only around end-2027; (4) Gulf / Strait of Hormuz war-risk insurance and routing risk stayed elevated through 2026 in marine advisories. This is not a rocket-specific ban, but it adds cost and logistics risk for European hardware moving through the region; (5) French dual-use export licensing (SBDU) is a hard gate for launcher tech leaving the EU, and no public licence grant for this mission was found. Believe the date when hardware sits on a licensed pad with signed ops agreements.

Latitude 2019 – 2021: Certainly one of the youngest NewSpace companies in Europe

Latitude was founded in 2019 (originally Prometheus Space Industries SAS, then Venture Orbital Systems) by Stanislas Maximin as Président/CEO, Ilan Saidi-Bekerman as DG/COO, and briefly Corentin Coste as DG/CTO. Coste left in late 2020; Kevin Monvoisin became the technical co-founder figure the company still lists (now Head of Global Services on the site).

Maximin and Saidi-Bekerman were born in 1999. That detail was the hook in 2023. It still is. What changed is everything around them: capital, headcount, pad geography, and who sits in the CEO chair.

The Seed years brought UI Investissement money, BSA AIR convertibles, ESA BIC and CNES micro-grants, and Grand Est money tied to the Reims move. The factory moved to Reims, first to Allée du Vignoble, then to 53 Rue du Docteur Albert Schweitzer.

2022 – 2024: Series A, Series B, and a launch date that would not stick

March 2022: MoU with SaxaVord. June 2022: Series A around EUR 10 million and the rebrand toward Latitude. December 2022: Navier prototype firing at SaxaVord (~30 seconds). The team talked about growing past 70 people and a first flight at the end of 2024, a year the company had targeted since at least December 2020.

January 2024: Series B of EUR 27 million (USD 30 million). Register filings around the same window take capital from EUR 3,453.20 to EUR 6,807.60 by issuing 33,544 shares at EUR 0.10 nominal. The premium that would let us price the round is not in the free announcement text. The first-flight target in the Series B PR was still 2025. It did not hold.

2024 – 2026: Factory money, Kourou, ELC miss, Oman, new CEO

26 March 2024: CNES names Latitude among four laureates of the France 2030 micro/mini-lancement demonstration call (flight demo talk then pointed at end-2026 from ELM Kourou). 5 November 2024: Aurélie Bressollette becomes CEO; Maximin moves to Executive Chairman. April 2025: Première Usine selection for a ~25,000 m² Reims plant; Titan chamber hot fires. June 2025: company commits about EUR 8 million of its own money to dedicated Diamant pad infrastructure (CNES separately funds ~EUR 50 million of shared site works). 7 July 2025: ESA does not put Latitude on the European Launcher Challenge shortlist. Early 2026: Zephyr disappears from the website. 1 July 2026: Etlaq Oman LoI (framework; experimental inaugural targeted late 2027; detailed agreements and export control still to follow). 4 August 2026: Philippe Trillat becomes CEO. Register capital reaches EUR 10,032.80 (31 August 2026). Saidi-Bekerman is no longer DG (May 2026).

The launcher (formerly Zephyr): specs with dates

Spec	Dec 2023 / early-2025 materials	Company site Oct 2026
Payload	100 kg LEO (then); 200 kg variant from 2028	~200 kg LEO; up to 300 kg SSO. The company gives no orbit heights. A rocket usually carries less to SSO than to LEO, so the two figures likely refer to different orbits.
Length / diameter	~19 m / ~1.5 m	~30 m / ~2 m
Engines	7 + 1 Navier (ESF Dec 2023, Apr 2025)	count not restated on launcher page
Propellant	LOX / RP-1	LOX / RP-1
Reusability	Not the plan: production cadence	same posture
Price talk	~$3m class (2023 review)	“most affordable dedicated” marketing, no new audited price

Tests that actually happened (selected): December 2022 prototype at SaxaVord (~30 s). April 2025 flight-config chamber hot fire at Titan / Vatry (~10 s). Mid-2026 integrated Navier hot fires (company / local press). No orbital attempt.

Boreal, a suborbital side project, was cancelled. The company no longer uses the name “Zephyr Heavy”.

Business and financials: announced equity, filed capital, public money

Equity (announced)

• Seed ~EUR 0.75 million (2020–21), including the BSA AIR convertibles from the original review.
• Series A ~EUR 10 million (June 2022).
• Series B EUR 27 million (USD 30 million, January 2024). Company total ~EUR 50 million.

Valuation

Our Series A back-of-napkin (~EUR 25 million post) stays as a dated estimate. For Series B we do not print a post-money number. The January 2024 capital increase is visible at nominal value only (EUR 0.10 par, capital to EUR 6,807.60). Without the issue price in a free acte extract, we cannot price the round.

Register capital and public money

Register capital path (selected): EUR 2,000 at creation → ~EUR 3.5k after Series A window → EUR 6,807.60 (Jan 2024) → EUR 10,032.80 (31 Aug 2026). Almost all of the economic raise sits in share premium, not in capital social.

Public money (selected): RDI grants 2022–23; Première Usine-linked aides (~EUR 2.67m grant + EUR 0.89m recoverable on Pappers); CNES micro/mini laureate without a published contract total; no ELC. Kourou: CNES shared pad money ≠ Latitude’s >EUR 8m specific spend.

Accounts: FY2020 and FY2021 are public (tiny revenue, losses). FY2022 through FY2025 are not public on BODACC/Pappers, so we do not estimate cash burn.

Order book: Maximin’s mid-2025 line of 26 reservations and ~EUR 400 million “pipeline” is a company claim, not an audited backlog.

Business model: speed, dedicated orbits, and a cadence promise

Latitude still sells the same commercial idea Maximin pitched early: dedicated orbits at short notice (the old “Amazon Prime for Space” line), not winning on raw kilograms against Falcon 9. The 2023 review’s ~$3 million / ~$35,000 per kg figures were company talk then. We have no newer audited price sheet. Treat them as historical claims until a fresh customer contract surfaces.

Cadence talk has always been aggressive (tens of launches per year by the late 2020s). Without a first flight, these are plans on paper. In 2026 Latitude is a French industrial project that raised a Series B and won national demonstration/factory support, while several European peers locked ESA Launcher Challenge money Latitude did not.

Working at Latitude: salary, jobs and career perspective

Salary ranges from the 2023 review (roughly EUR 36–55k for many engineering roles then) are a dated estimate.

Base is Reims; engine and stage work runs through the Titan test site at Vatry. English is widely used alongside French.

My opinion on Latitude and why you should keep an eye on them

What I like about Latitude

• Still founder-led: Maximin remains Président and Executive Chairman while hired CEOs run day-to-day work.
• French soil industrialisation: Reims factory path + Titan test site are physical sites where hardware is built and tested.
• Willingness to fund without ELC: Losing the Challenge shortlist would have killed some narratives. Latitude’s public line was to keep building.

What I don’t like about Latitude

• Changing launch sites: SaxaVord MoU → Kourou Diamant → Oman LoI. No public SaxaVord termination notice turned up. The first flight moved each time. Each step had a rationale. Together they read like schedule pressure.
• Opaque accounts after 2021: Legal confidentiality is common. It still removes the balance-sheet discipline the 2023 review leaned on.
• Spec sheet drift without a flight: Length, payload and engine count all moved in public materials while the vehicle stayed on the ground.

Things to watch out for

• Watch late 2027, but expect a slip: Company homepage and Oman LoI both point there. We’d treat that date as optimistic until hardware is on a licensed pad with binding ops and export clearances (see overview).
• Kourou after Oman: Is Diamant a second orbit, a backup, or a press artifact? Latitude still calls Oman a complement to CSG.
• Etlaq reality check: Genesis has flown suborbital experiments; the orbital complex is still planned for end-2027. Shared peers (PLD, HyImpulse) do not make Latitude’s LoI a countdown clock.
• Next private round: Series B is ageing. Factory + pad spend wants either revenue or fresh equity.
• ESA customer path: Outside ELC, how many institutional missions actually book Latitude?

More information on Latitude (ex-Venture Orbital Systems)

Field	Detail
Official name	Latitude SAS (SIREN 850 181 918, RCS Reims)
Founded	March 2019 (as Prometheus Space Industries)
Management	Président: Stanislas Maximin; CEO (company): Philippe Trillat (from Aug 2026); co-founders Maximin, Saidi-Bekerman (former DG), Kevin Monvoisin
Headquarter	53 Rue du Docteur Albert Schweitzer, 51100 Reims (register); website also lists 23 Rue Rosa Luxemburg
Test site	Titan / Vatry airport (Bussy-Lettree)
Launch sites	Etlaq Oman (LoI, planned experimental inaugural); CSG ELM-Diamant Kourou (infra); SaxaVord (historical MoU)
Capital	EUR 10,032.80 (31 Aug 2026)

Updates on Latitude (October 2026)

This refresh covers:

• First-flight status and the SaxaVord → Kourou → Oman LoI path (experimental late 2027; non-binding framework; why we think the date is optimistic)
• Series B (January 2024) and the European Launcher Challenge non-selection (July 2025), with peer context vs Isar / RFA / PLD / HyImpulse
• Première Usine / CNES demonstration laureate status and the Diamant payer split
• Leadership changes (Bressollette, Trillat) and Saidi-Bekerman leaving the DG seat
• Vehicle rename, Navier layout, and dated payload/length figures
• Headcount from INSEE and from the company, and register capital through August 2026
• October 2026: Full review refresh. Companion: 2026 Update on Latitude.

All information in this analysis was obtained from public sources and we encourage you to do your own due diligence. Feel free to contact us for corrections or share our content. Attribution is always welcome.